Capacity building: qualifying local support institutions on CSR related issues

UNIDO carries out a wide range of capacity building initiatives targeting public and private business support and advisory institutions working with SMEs.

We organize courses as well as on-the-job training for local experts enabling them to support companies in the implementation of socially and environmentally responsible business practices. Thereby, they will gain the skills they need in order to be able to offer CSR-related services after the completion of a project to SMEs and respective support institutions on a sustainable basis. During the trainings UNIDO’s approach to CSR – the Triple Bottom Line approach (TBL) – will be illustrated and all the relevant aspects of it (economic, environmental and social domains) covered. Parts of the UNIDO CSR training material (including REAP) are translated into the local languages and adapted to country-specific situations and sector-specific particularities, as deemed appropriate.

In addition, UNIDO qualifies local experts to become so-called “CSR mentors” who will be able to provide training to other experts in a country or region on the basis of a train-the-trainers concept. Since this is a longer process, these future CSR mentors will attend several trainings as well as all other relevant seminars and conferences and actively participate in a CSR project carried out by UNIDO.